The present invention relates to a surface inspection method and surface inspection apparatus of an object to be inspected.
Examples of the surface inspection method and surface inspection apparatus of an object to be inspected include a method and apparatus for inspecting the surface of a wafer as described in JP-A-9-304289, for example. A laser beam outputted from a laser beam source is focused into a laser spot Sp (hereinafter, referred to as a spot Sp) by a lens system and is projected approximately perpendicularly or obliquely onto the surface of a wafer, and the surface of a wafer is spirally scanned corresponding to a displacement of the wafer, and as a result the whole surface of the wafer is scanned. When a foreign matter e is present on the surface of a wafer, a scattered light Se is generated in a wide range of angles (directions). A part thereof is condensed with a condenser lens and is received by a plurality of photomultiplier tubes (hereinafter, referred to as PMT) serving as photoelectric converters. Here, the beam incident upon the plurality of PMTs is converted into an electric signal and the converted electric signal (received light signal) is subjected to data processing. As a result of the data processing, the data of the foreign matter indicative of the number, size, and position of the foreign matter e is generated, and the conditions of the foreign matters are displayed in a map form on a printer (not shown) or on a display (not shown).